April 2020 - The Winding Road

Changing the Game – Without a Resume

by Travis L. ScottApril 29, 2020April 29, 2020

How can you get noticed without a resume or a LinkedIn profile? If you’re a software engineer and have a LinkedIn profile it’s like throwing bread out to hungry pigeons. It doesn’t take long before the flock of recruiters sending you messages grows and grows and grows. LinkedIn has all kinds of fancy filters that recruiters can use that make discriminating against people pretty easy. Things like filtering results by graduation date making it nearly impossible for older employees to even show up in some search results. That’s why you won’t find my graduation dates anywhere on my LinkedIn profile. …

8 Reasons to Start Networking- Even if You’re Not Looking for Another Role

by Travis L. ScottApril 21, 2020April 21, 2020

If you never visit LinkedIn because you aren’t looking for another role you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to build a strong, intentional network that will pay dividends well into the future. Making the right connections is, in my opinion, more important than what you know at any given time. Back when I was a corporate recruiter, LinkedIn was an integral part of my day. I spent more time on LinkedIn than anything else throughout the day. It’s been nearly five years (I was actually shocked when I realized how long it’s been) since I’ve done any recruiting on …

Inbound vs Outbound Marketing and Your Career

by Travis L. ScottApril 14, 2020April 14, 2020

I’m currently reading From Impossible to Inevitable by Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin. You might think it’s strange that a marketing person is reading a book about sales. Prior to marketing, I was in sales roles. Both legit sales roles and recruiting, which is mostly a sales role. If great marketers make change, they also are connecting buyers with sellers. Buyers don’t always have to be physically purchasing something. It could also mean creating buy-in to a concept, idea, or in the case of your career, buying into your skills and experience. Great marketing bookends the sales process. It creates …

Our Narratives and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

by Travis L. ScottApril 7, 2020April 7, 2020

It’s all invented. Those three words have changed the way I view the world. A few months ago I read the book The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. The very first chapter is titled “It’s All Invented.” It’s a great book and I would highly recommend it. However, I probably could have stopped reading after Chapter 1 because that phase was all I needed to understand. It was a game-changer for me. The premise is so much of the world around us is and has been invented. Invented by humans. We invent things every day. …